a medical student and creationism?
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mmmcdowe
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More importantly, do you really think that person is a MD/DO medical student. Or a "medical student" from one of the other health professions. I vote x-ray tech.
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Anybody can be anything on the Internet.
I'm 10 feet tall, world's strongest man, the greatest guitar player that's ever lived, have sex 22 hours a day with supermodels and have the biggest penis in the world.
Med student? Maybe, maybe not.
I'm 10 feet tall, world's strongest man, the greatest guitar player that's ever lived, have sex 22 hours a day with supermodels and have the biggest penis in the world.
Med student? Maybe, maybe not.
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If you're christian, duh.
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As long as their job performance is good, it doesn't matter to me. If, however, that student believes that prayer and exorcisms are a suitable means for treating cancer then we should be worried.
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That's kinda what I was thinking. But then again, I believe in evelution or watever, so I might be biased.
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you dont' have to believe in creationism or intelligent design to be christian. there is more to it than that.
I'm just saying what does it matter what religion they are in medical school? Haha I know plenty of Christians in medical school! And no, they didn't get 24's on their mcat, but they do go to MD schools. I also know people who aren't Christians....Atheists, muslims, etc. that are in medical schools! Some have high mcats, some low....I just don't get why it is a suprise to someone that a Christian be in medical school.
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Some of the most vocal christians (Falwell, Robertson, etc.) are ignorant about science--they may even be proud of it! Then people stereotype christians based off these fools; hence the result are the thoughts in this thread.
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Forget creationism, a 24 MCAT at a U.S. MD school these days? How? Is she URM by any chance?
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Let's not go there. She really is a nice person though.
Don't see a problem with it. One of the doctors I shadowed was a very profound believer in that fact that God created life. He was amazed at the beauty of the body and heart and believed that there must have been an intervening or at least a guiding hand in the process.
His beliefs did not diminish his cardiothoracic surgery skills one bit.
His beliefs did not diminish his cardiothoracic surgery skills one bit.
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I have at least one or two classmates who are creationists (and they definitely didn't get a 24 on the MCAT...). They are quite smart and dedicated and I'm sure they'll make great doctors. I don't doubt that their religion actually helps them succeed.
However, as a staunch believer in evolution (is that even the way to put it? Can one "believe" in evolution? It kinda sounds like "believing" in math...it just seems self-evident to me), I can't really see how what we study and the whole creationist theory can be related. I mean, I feel like if you don't believe in evolution, you can't believe in bacterial modification, antibiotic resistance, animal testing of drugs, the use of animal tissue (such as heart valves) in humans, and so many other concepts essential to our practice. I'm honestly curious as to how one can study medicine without believing these things.
However, as a staunch believer in evolution (is that even the way to put it? Can one "believe" in evolution? It kinda sounds like "believing" in math...it just seems self-evident to me), I can't really see how what we study and the whole creationist theory can be related. I mean, I feel like if you don't believe in evolution, you can't believe in bacterial modification, antibiotic resistance, animal testing of drugs, the use of animal tissue (such as heart valves) in humans, and so many other concepts essential to our practice. I'm honestly curious as to how one can study medicine without believing these things.
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You can be a creationist and be a medical student...
why wouldn't you be able to?
I mean unless you're going into heavy academic/research fields where a certain gene comes from isn't really going to affect your performance when it comes to diagnosing an illness as a surgeon/neurologist/etc right?
Now, as for this kid being a medical student...
I doubt it
even if he doesn't believe in it I would expect a medical student who has been required to take biology courses have a better understanding of "evelution" than this guy
why wouldn't you be able to?
I mean unless you're going into heavy academic/research fields where a certain gene comes from isn't really going to affect your performance when it comes to diagnosing an illness as a surgeon/neurologist/etc right?
Now, as for this kid being a medical student...
I doubt it
even if he doesn't believe in it I would expect a medical student who has been required to take biology courses have a better understanding of "evelution" than this guy
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It's exceptionally popular for christians these days to say: "I believe in evolution within a species, but not between species."
To which I wonder: when a "species" "evolves" "within itself" enough to becomes another "species", what has just happened?
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I think the problem most creationists in science have is with "macro evolution" trans-species stuff and not necessarily the "micro" stuff you mentioned. I put them in quotes because...well you know. As long as someone isn't bothering me with their beliefs I could care less what they think.
There are other people who just don't believe in abiogenesis but believe in evolution and consider themselves creationists.
then there are people who don't believe in the big bang and consider themselves creationists.
there are even people who believe in all of that but believe god put the laws necessary for them to occur in place.
I forgot what my point was :/
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I had two biology profs who believed in creation. I'm not a bio major. So, I may not have this completely right, but the way I understand their arguments is this:
Antibiotic resistance may not be evolved. It may just be as we treated people with antibiotics, those bacteria that were resistant became a bigger part of that population. Same general idea with modification.
Drug testing and animal tissue transplants are based on existing similarity. The source of that similarity is not necessarily evolution.
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I can't see a big problem in it. However this kid is in medical school like I'm in ballet school. I mean really, it doesn't take even a intro biology class to talk about how 99.9% of your DNA is the same as the next guy's DNA.
I mean sure its true, it's not easy to think that from a single celled life form something as complex as we could be made. But again its all theory, I won't say that it's 100% true, but when you like at mitochondria and chloroplast your left in the realism that something at some point happened.
You can be a creationist, but I'll be blunt in saying that a good amount of doctors especially in there times will be ever less fond of such idea's.
Though you gotta like the whole loop logic. Read the bible. Why -> Because god wrote it. How do you know its written by god -> because the bible say's so.
I mean sure its true, it's not easy to think that from a single celled life form something as complex as we could be made. But again its all theory, I won't say that it's 100% true, but when you like at mitochondria and chloroplast your left in the realism that something at some point happened.
You can be a creationist, but I'll be blunt in saying that a good amount of doctors especially in there times will be ever less fond of such idea's.
Though you gotta like the whole loop logic. Read the bible. Why -> Because god wrote it. How do you know its written by god -> because the bible say's so.
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I'd just like to point out that I'm a Christian who scored mid-30s on my MCAT. Way to inject a nonsequitur example of an outlier (which may or may not even be true, just as my claim could easily be fabricated).
Also, I'd bet the farm on the fact that with some searching, I could find an atheist applicant with a similar score.
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Outliers.. outlier.. lets just all be civil here..
I would assume it would be pretty easy.
How often do doctors on a day-to-day basis employ these concepts (or even think about it) in the treatment of their patients? I would assume most accept the modern conveniences of medicine (i.e. this drug treats this, this transplants works because it was intended, etc.) without delving too much into the scientific discovery of these conveniences.
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That's a tenant of common sense, not evolution. The antibiotic resistance could have been pre-programmed in the DNA of the bacteria. Evolution isn't the only explanation for it.
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Evolution and religion aren't mutually exclusive. I guess it is if you read the Bible, along with Genesis as being a literal history, but I certainly don't and neither do, I think, a majority of my Christian classmates.
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Pre-programmed resistance within the DNA? That's kinda cool, why did 1 bacteria strand or colony have it and not the other. Evolution might not be the only explaination, but I'll be damned if I've heard a better one and more stable one.
I mean, mutation is obviously something that happens. DNA synthesis isn't perfect and no identical daughter cells are always made. Sometime's they will be different, combine that over a long period of time and you'll have millions of different types of the similar things. If it was simply pre-programmed all of the bacteria would be able to survive. Not just a specific strand of bacteria which will remain.
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We have observed conjugation occurring between different species of bacteria. That is, unless I'm missing something obvious, by definition evolution--new genes being introduced to a species that previously did not have them.
I guess I don't see what the big deal is. If there is a god, he certainly could have decided to create humanity through the process of evolution. That doesn't mean he could not still have inspired the authors of the Bible (or Quaran or what have you), but perhaps he just gave the humans of 3,000 years ago a story they could understand at the time. That doesn't mean we shouldn't still strive to better understand him and his creation as new means to do so become available to us.
Of course, you can always argue that the universe doesn't need a god to explain its existence, but that's an entirely separate argument I'd rather not get into. I'm just saying there are certainly logical ways to reconcile religion and evolution.
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But a species might have been programmed with genetic diversity. Some had resistance and some didn't.
IMO evolution is a good way of looking at biology from a scientific perspective, but I don't believe that it gives an accurate history of life.
Edit: I guess this is similar to what Spurs is saying.
IMO evolution is a good way of looking at biology from a scientific perspective, but I don't believe that it gives an accurate history of life.
Edit: I guess this is similar to what Spurs is saying.
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What do you mean by you don't believe in "human" evolution (through natural selection, I suppose)? Does that mean you believe in plant/microbial evolution?
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Programmed with genetic diversity...? I'm sorry but I don't even understand what your sayinh at this point.. Examples might help.
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I thought most politicians are pro-creationist teaching in schools...
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In regards to this:
I'm saying not all bacteria in a species had to be created with resistance. I guess kind of like different color shoes (red, yellow, blue, etc). The different colors could have been created within the same species, but as styles change you see more shoes of a certain color. In the antibiotic resistance situation, the overall population changes to get more resistant bacteria (red shoes), but the red shoes were there from the start. They didn't evolve.serenade said:
Hope that made sense.
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In regards to this:
I'm saying not all bacteria in a species had to be created with resistance. I guess kind of like different color shoes (red, yellow, blue, etc). The different colors could have been created within the same species, but as styles change you see more shoes of a certain color. In the antibiotic resistance situation, the overall population changes to get more resistant bacteria (red shoes), but the red shoes were there from the start. They didn't evolve.
Hope that made sense.
Hmm that still adaptation. Are you familiar with the white and brown moth example in England? Things rarely develop evolutionary things for the sake of combating something, it requires speed where as evolution is slow. The red shows were already there, they just became better when they are shown to be already resistant to it.
So in your opinion you don't believe that there are mutations which can be helpful? I mean mutation's role is somewhat not touched by your idea.
The situation you describe is microevolution. Over a short period of time, allele frequencies change (ie, bacteria with antibiotic resistance become a larger proportion of the total population) within a population (of bacteria), because of selection (by antibiotics). A new allele does not "evolve", it is created through a random mutation. Evolution is the change of allele frequencies over time. Eventually allele frequencies change so much in a given population that we call this population a new species (for example, if members of the population cannot reproduce with original members of the species). This is known as macroevolution.
EDIT: I really have to add, if your bio profs don't understand this concept, they shouldn't be teaching bio. Also, an allele is defined as a specific variation of a gene, just to make that clear
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I'd also like to point out that the distinction between "microevolution" and "macroevolution" doesn't really exist, and is a construct introduced by IDers so they don't have to explain the evolution we can actually see happening while still being able to reject evolution as a concept.
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What they were saying is that microevolution dos not require new alleles. Just different expression/frequency of the alleles already present. It doesn't lead to macroevolution, because no new code is produced.
At serenade: A mutation could possibly be helpful, but it is highly unlikely. If I understand my profs correctly, they were saying that the good mutations don't accumulate enough to cause macroevolution.
This is my last post for the night.😴
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Macroevolution doesn't require new alleles either. It's just thousands of microevolutions which don't require allele changes. More or less there's a whole system of expressions of them which all feed into a single adaptation... It's like the whole concept of a gene doing something, its not 1 gene, it's thousands if not millions of them all being expressed in a particular blend.
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You could be the leader of the free world and be a creationist. You could even be mormon...
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I'm a Christian and believe in Creationism- I was a biology major, took a whole course on evolution, etc but I still believe in Creation.
My belief on how we got to this point doesn't really make a difference in what kind of doctor I will be... I will know my stuff and be able to treat patients the same as anyone who believes otherwise.
I don't see what all the fuss is about.
My belief on how we got to this point doesn't really make a difference in what kind of doctor I will be... I will know my stuff and be able to treat patients the same as anyone who believes otherwise.
I don't see what all the fuss is about.
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sad.
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My problem with everyone saying "who cares, it doesn't affect what kind of doctor you'll be" is this: to reject evolution, you either have to not understand the science behind it, or worse, you have to actively reject the science in favor of beliefs you hold. If you don't understand the science, that's an issue and you should fix that. If you actively reject science, then you're actively crossing over into the realm of pseudoscience, where CAM and "faith healing" win out over evidence based medicine, scientifically supported medicine.
To be honest, you sound more paranoid than anything else.
The majority of religion believers who are practicing physicians probably interject very little to none of their beliefs into their practice of medicine on a daily basis nor let their beliefs take over the knowledge they've learned through medical school.
It always seems to breakdown into the Michael Ruse crowd, who don't see why creationism (or at least some form) can't co-exist with the theory of evolution (something Catholicism semi-advocates) or the Richard Dawkins crowd, who seem to think the very existence of science and its foundation loses all meaning if there is a higher being at work.
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Life, science, creation of the world because of evolution those things exist. All of these things are here to learn and understand. There is great amounts of knowledge to be gained exploring and discovering all of it.
By the same token theologies, and religion, of all kinds should be explored. It's amazing to me, what kind of things come to be seen, through looking at any religious documents. I believe it gives us further insight into the psychology of people.
That said anyone who would let their religious beliefs get in the way of treating another human being with the appropriate treatment is practicing unethically. It's true whatever religious beliefs you hold are not a detriment to your treatment of a patient. In fact having a wide variety of knowledge about religious, or spiritual beliefs can actually help in treating a patient. It helps one to relate to the person, you don't have to believe everything, but that is a part of society and culture. Chock it up to evolution when people started to need to understand what seemed beyond them and was so muchbigger or supernatural.
We evolved into believing in something whether we were monotheists, or polytheists. There was something bigger, and much more expansive out there than us. We ascribed characteristics we could understand to whatever that was as we evolved to being able to comprehend that arond us that was much larger. This is my thought on evolution vs creationism. If they have to be enemies of one another. We can say evolution allowed creation whether by us, or some entity, God, whatever it is we put a name and face to our vast universe in some way.
A
By the same token theologies, and religion, of all kinds should be explored. It's amazing to me, what kind of things come to be seen, through looking at any religious documents. I believe it gives us further insight into the psychology of people.
That said anyone who would let their religious beliefs get in the way of treating another human being with the appropriate treatment is practicing unethically. It's true whatever religious beliefs you hold are not a detriment to your treatment of a patient. In fact having a wide variety of knowledge about religious, or spiritual beliefs can actually help in treating a patient. It helps one to relate to the person, you don't have to believe everything, but that is a part of society and culture. Chock it up to evolution when people started to need to understand what seemed beyond them and was so muchbigger or supernatural.
We evolved into believing in something whether we were monotheists, or polytheists. There was something bigger, and much more expansive out there than us. We ascribed characteristics we could understand to whatever that was as we evolved to being able to comprehend that arond us that was much larger. This is my thought on evolution vs creationism. If they have to be enemies of one another. We can say evolution allowed creation whether by us, or some entity, God, whatever it is we put a name and face to our vast universe in some way.
A
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You're basically making the slippery slope argument, which simply doesn't make sense, particularly in this case; there's a gigantic leap between rejecting science in one instance and doing so in ALL instances.
For the record, that's my understanding of it.
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